NEW YORK, Feb. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- News & Guts, the start-up website (newsandguts.com) founded by famed news anchor Dan Rather, passed 1 million unique visitors in January, only its second month of publishing. The site features a mix of political commentary, original reporting, documentary video storytelling, and curated links to other credible editorial sources.

News & Guts is intended to help better serve Rather's Facebook audience who has come to read his essays and his take on news for the last few years on both his own page and on the News & Guts FB page. Rather has built a highly-engaged reader base with 4.5 million followers on Facebook and Twitter with up to 200 million views per month on the social media platforms. "Engaging with a new audience on social media has been one of the most rewarding times of my career. And now with the new website, it's an opportunity for me to cut through all the bull shine and bring you what's important," Rather says.

The site's launch in late November was tied to the publication of Rather's New York Times best-selling book What Unites Us (Algonquin Books, co-authored with Elliot Kirschner), and coincides with the premiere of "The News w/Dan Rather," produced in partnership with The Young Turks, the progressive YouTube channel that boasts 3.6 million subscribers.

To fulfill its mission as a next-generation source for news reporting and investigative journalism, News & Guts is also investing in original documentary short subjects. First up in February: Exclusive, in-the-field reporting that takes a closer look at the unexpected stories of migrants from Latin America crossing the U.S.-Mexico border (trailer below). Another original documentary will tell the story of one of the most ethnically-diverse square miles in America, a place that is not well known and just happens to be located in the Deep South.

News & Guts logged its best day ever, in terms of total audience, on January 29--the day news broke that deputy director Andrew McCabe resigned under pressure from the FBI.